Small Creators vs. Big Industry

Project Overview

What this project is

This project explores the creation and impact of a TikTok edit that blends scenes from Arcane with the visual style and interactive feel of Life is Strange. The goal was to create an edit that feels less like a traditional montage and more like a short playable moment from a narrative game, introduced by a “Press Space to Interact” prompt to reinforce the game-like experience.

The project also examines the performance and reception of the edit on TikTok, including its rapid growth in views, interaction from the official creators behind Arcane, and the challenges that arise when original ideas begin to spread and be replicated across the platform.

Video

Final Render

Gallery

Statistics [Days 1-3]

Over the first three days, the edit performed significantly better than my previous content, quickly surpassing my earlier highest-performing video of 80k views. Within this short period the video reached over 1,072,000 views and accumulated more than 4,200 hours of total watch time, showing strong engagement and algorithm distribution. I was incredibly proud of this preformance.

Gallery

Statistics [Days 7]

Gallery

Recgnonition

Problem

The challenge

The goal of this edit was to combine scenes from Arcane with the visual style and atmosphere of Life is Strange, creating an edit that feels less like a traditional montage and more like a playable moment from a narrative game. To achieve this, I introduced a “Press Space to Interact” prompt at the beginning of the edit to reinforce the illusion that the viewer is about to enter a game-like experience.

However, once the edit began gaining traction, a new challenge emerged. On platforms like TikTok, smaller creators often compete not only for attention but also with content replication, where others quickly recreate or repost identical edits once a format starts trending. This means maintaining originality and recognition for the initial idea becomes difficult, especially when larger accounts interact with content without necessarily tracing it back to the original source.

Video

Alleged "replica edit"

Reflection

Inspiration or plagarism?

One interesting outcome of this edit was the response from the official creators of Arcane. Both Riot Games and the League of Legends TikTok account interacted with the video, liking it and leaving a comment, which was a strong signal that the edit resonated with the people behind the original work. For a creator, having the studio acknowledge your edit is a meaningful moment and shows the impact that fan-made content can have.

However, the situation also highlighted a common issue within short-form content platforms: the blurred line between inspiration and replication. My edit was originally posted on 30 November, but on 9 December another creator posted a version that used the same scenes, the same audio, and even the same “Press Space to Interact” concept at the start. Because of how closely it mirrored the structure and creative choices of the original, I refer to it as a replica rather than simply inspiration.

Initially, this replica edit did not credit my work. It was only after viewers began commenting things like “I thought @S30TT.mp4 made this” that the creator eventually added credit several weeks later. This shows how audience recognition can sometimes play a role in protecting originality when platforms themselves do not enforce it.

Another interesting detail is that the League of Legends account interacted with the replica edit first, commenting on it two days before interacting with my original post, despite my version being published earlier. This highlights how large accounts often engage with content that is already trending without necessarily tracing the origin of the idea. While the interaction was still positive overall, the sequence of events illustrates how easily the source of a creative concept can become blurred once it begins spreading across the platform.

Technical Notes

Challenges and what I learned

Talk about the hardest parts, what changed during development, what trade-offs you made, and what you would improve next.

References

Links and further reading

• GitHub Repository
• Design Inspiration
• Technical Documentation
• Related Article or Research